Medal to Cardin and Bitter Pill to Oneself...

The words Leonid Kuchma said in Paris on December 8 — “Ukraine has found complete support with respect to its future” — and the European Commission statement made shortly before that, during the Ukrainian President’s visit to Brussels — “The European Union is not prepared to discuss Ukrainian membership” — is not simply a contradiction. This only states the fact that friendship, as well as club membership, cannot be forced — it can only be won by merit.

It will take a long time for Ukrainian-European friendship to materialize in clear-cut terms. Ukrainian-French friendship is a simpler case. In any case, some words are being said about it at official meetings, and there are friends, at least on the level of human relationships if not on that of official bilateral relations. For example, Pierre Cardin, one of the Western world’s very few representatives who were not afraid to visit Chornobyl after the disaster and who donated without excess verbiage money to build houses for the Chornobyl victims. He also recently furnished the premises to hold the days of Ukraine in France. Apparently, this is not “ haute couture on the arena of international diplomacy,” as Leonid Kuchma said, awarding Mr. Cardin the Medal of Merit. It is humanity. Real friendship between countries is impossible even when they are close, as Franco-British beef war shows, let alone when far away. Friendship among industrialists, businessmen, and bankers — when it deals with mutual benefit — seems to be more realistic. Of course, if the Franco-Ukrainian dialogue organized for this purpose really justifies its name. It was even on the agenda of the last year’s visit by French President Jacques Chirac to Ukraine. A new dialogue has now been announced; it will be conducted on the French side by a very tough customer, president of the French National Bank Jean- Claude Trichet. This “dialogue” is likely to begin in Kyiv in January- February 2000. So far, MEDEF (the French analogue of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs) says it is at least satisfied that a conflict has been solved between the Lafarge giant construction-material company and the Ukrainian side about the Mykolayiv Cement Plant in Lviv oblast. It will only be good if this arouses the interest of French capital in Ukraine, makes us respect the long-established rules of the game, and prompts all of us to drop idle talk and finally get down to concrete actions.

For the time being, even those who treat this country well (very few in the West) conclude that the current regime in Ukraine is far from democratic (The Financial Times) and that the Ukrainian leadership’s assurances about this country’s strategic European choice run counter to the existing pattern of our development without real reforms (Le Monde).

People’s diplomacy, as performed by Pierre Cardin, is a very good and important thing. Yet, the best argument for Ukraine to be recognized as worthy of European club membership can only be a worthy, strong, and independent Ukraine. Only then will our position on the Chornobyl shutdown, joint air and space flights, and many other things be taken into consideration.